THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 33 



peculiarly dry character of the earth which surrounded them, which, 

 strange to say, was little more than damp, notwithstanding that 

 it was the depth of winter when I first visited the spot; while 

 the lowest chamber cannot be less, as I estimate it, than 50 feet 

 below the surface of the hill. 



Although no greater antiquity, geologically speaking, can be 

 assigned to these osseous remains, still, when the time that must 

 have elapsed since the animals to which they belonged, lived, is 

 calculated by that chronology which is measured by human events 

 and action, nothing short of an ceon has rolled into the ever-swelling 

 past, as I will endeavor to show. The cave-earth covering the bones, 

 is completely foreign to the soil on the surface of the hill, and 

 especially to that immediately surrounding the mouth of the cave. 

 On the floor of the opening forming the first chamber, there was much 

 in common with the soil on the surface — an intermixture of alluvium, 

 gravel, grit, bits of sticks, and other vegetable matter, and the 

 remains of land-snail shells of species found living in abundance in 

 the locality. These had been carried in by wind and weather. In 

 the second chamber, as already stated, these conditions were almost 

 entirely absent; such traces of humus and vegetable substance as 

 were visible, were confined to the immediate vicinty of the narrow 

 opening leading thereto; while, from this point to the extremity of 

 the cavern the soil was fine, pulverulent, rusty red, and homogeneous 

 throughout; such as could only be produced by disintegration of the 

 hard, crystalline greenstone. No evidence, whatever, is to be seen of 

 fluviatile agency in this cave-earth. Now, when it is remembered how 

 well calculated a crystalline, plutonic rock, such as this greenstone is to 

 resist natural decomposing, or disintegrating agency, it will be 

 readily conceded, I feel assured, that a very long period of time must 

 have elapsed to produce a deposit such as 1 have described, and 

 which I penetrated in one place to a depth of 18 inches. That this 

 cave-earth is the result of slow disintegration of the greenstone, is 

 satisfactorily shown by analysis, which was made of both earth and 

 rock, allowance being made for the presence of traces of the elements 

 of animal excrement in the former. 



Of no small interest, it may be said, is the question of how these 

 bones came to be deposited in such an out-of-the-way situation. In 

 the first place, there was not a single perfect skeleton, or anything 

 approaching to one, to be seen in situ. The bones were scattered in 

 a most confused manner, while tliere were very few, indeed, that did 

 not bear the marks of liaving been subjected to a crushing process. 

 Had the various small animals to whom many of the bones belonged, 

 sought protection from a pursuing foe by rushing into the cave to 

 the farthest extremity, and then, through being unable to get out again 

 had died from starvation, it is only reasonable to suppose that under 

 such circumstances a more or less perfect skeleton would be met 



